Gifting Fire
by Mizamour
Summary: The original Victor Frankenstein was full of flaws - dodging responsibility, solipsism, fatalism, lack of honesty - problematic as anything. But no one is a monster, really, even one who thinks he's made one. This is Victor is still not yet ready to be a father - but for the sake of his creation, he must become one.
1. Waking

Waking

It was done. Victor did not look at it, yet - he could not have said why. Instead, his eyes surveyed the room, glancing off the form on the table. In the dimness, illuminated only by the wax puddles that had once been candles, he saw only glimpses, impressions, continually changing like a lightning-lit stormscape. A tray of instruments, their red tincture in the dark. A cast-off cloak across the floorboards, carelessly swept toward the dirt that lingered in a corner. The single curtain on the high casement, flickering in the draft that seized through the cracked window.

The draft- that cold, more than anything else, returned Victor's perception to the table, and what the dim light spoke of there. The candle stubs, their glow fleeting, illuminating a hand, a limb, a mass of tangled black hair. He should have felt triumph. But somehow the elements of the human form, so complex and beautiful when he had joined them, the veins and bones a puzzle that had never been macabre, seemed here too strange, unwelcome, an intrusion into the seclusion of study. Had he - could he - have made this?

His gaze drew upward, unwilling, to the face. Mottled skin, cracked black lips, translucent grey lids- and then. His breath caught in his throat. Eyes. The creation - he wondered absently why he did not think of it as his - had opened his eyes. Dun-dark, glimmering with small points of yellow light, pupils large in the dimness. All aspects he had crafted, made. But this was new - this animation, pleading, penetrating, the air of something like supplication with which the creature stretched out one hand. Victor stood, frozen but with thoughts electric, racing. What was next? He should do something, no? Acknowledge it? Name himself its benefactor? Perhaps - greet the creature?

But then the sounds began.

In the graveyards, Victor's thoughts had never been disturbed by any of the aural visions trespassers were said to hear. No haunt's howl, no ghoul's cry - such things were superstition. He'd barely registered even the scrape of his own shovel, the dry dislodgment of a bone. Nothing would distract him from his purpose. But here, the noises that issued from this creature's lips - the human larynx was not formed for these. Victor staggered back unknowing, shielding his ears.

"No," he heard himself muttering. "No, I can't."

And he was running, swinging the door back behind him to shut out the sounds, plunging down the few curved steps, scattering his gaze to ensure none of the few rural inhabitants were out, his feet stepping backwards til his shoulders found purchase against the stones of the hovel's wall, sliding down as his legs bent under him and found the icy muck below. His breathing came in shallow gasps, eyes staring unseeing at his own hands before him. He did not know how much time passed, until in the building above, a groan issued, only softer than the unearthly cries before.

Victor started, looked up, breathed one long breath into frozen hands.

"What have I done?"

A/n - oh dear. This does not look to be turning out much differently than the original scenario - but don't worry, it will! My Victor is pretty based on original Victor, with at least half his flaws, and though he is going to overcome them and be a dad or sorts, he's not there yet. But next chapter will have some happy at least :)


	2. Slumber

Slumber

Victor opened his eyes with difficulty, the lids pressed shut with a rime of frost. He saw rather than felt the cold at first, tiny icicles clinging to his coat-buttons - then the sharp gusts, knifing past the neck where his forgotten scarf should be. He needed to get inside, but still he listened, ears piqued to hear any of the eldritch sounds he had before. But it was silent - and the hope that it had somehow vanished led him towards the building, back inside.

Ascending the steps, he faltered at the door - even as his body warmed at the thought of shelter, his mind quailed at what he might find inside. Might? He shook his head. Why did he persist on thinking of his creation as some fantastical apparition, some daemon that might manifest and vanish at will. His own hands had crafted it, his own mind molded it. He should feel no fear. Why did he? The voice of his father, almost forgotten in the months of single-minded pursuit, cut through his thoughts unwillingly.

 _My dear Victor, do not waste your time upon such, it is sad trash._

It was not quite fear that gripped him as he grasped the door-handle, not the panic that had seized him earlier as he felt the rough give of the wood frame as he turned it, pushed through. He forced his eyes upon his creature, which thankfully was not making any of the earlier-detested sounds. It was no longer in the recumbent, almost languid pose in which he had left it, but now was curled, knees drawn tight into its chest, on the ground, the back resting against a limb of the table. The face was tilted up, towards him, yellow-flecked eyes waiting, expectant. Shivers shook its frame. Victor only now realized he had left it without clothing save the cloth about its waist. He could not have the creature falling ill. Glancing through the room, Victor's eyes fell upon the discarded traveling cloak, and he snatched it up, advancing toward the creature with caution. But the creature made no movement of aggression, only let Victor approach, all the while staring at him with that unguarded gaze. The lips made no sound whatsoever as Victor hastily draped the cloak around the creature's shoulders, but opened, slightly, in what could be conceived as an expression of relief.

Victor's shoulders fell as he quickly took several steps back from the form, a breath he had not known he was holding escaping his own mouth. He watched, almost spellbound, as the creature moved its hands to draw the cloak closer about its body. At first, the attempts were fumbling, and part of Victor worried briefly that he had erred in the construction, that fine motor movements would not be possible. But then again - an image came to his mind. Victor had seen his little brother, William, undergo similar frustration in attempting to wriggle a chubby arm into the sleeve of his daydress, fist flailing as he railed in miniature ferocity against his mother's attempts to guide his arm into the sleeve. No, not his mother - this would have been too late for that. It had been Elizabeth. Elizabeth who had had to be a mother to their little brother. How had he forgotten? He shook his head as if to clear his thoughts, but he did not recall the reason his brother had come to mind, nor why his thoughts had flitted to family at such a strange moment.

His eyes back on the creature, he watched it manage, through a combination of shrugging its massive shoulders and testing the movements of its arms, to overcome its clumsy fingers and find its way deeper into the cloak. Finally, ensconced in as much fabric as possible - the large traveling cloak was still hardly enough to cover his shoulders - the creature opened his mouth wide and - silently - yawned.

Victor's throat felt strange. He had been awake for days now. He hadn't felt it, so consumed he had been in his endeavors, but now, despite his fear, despite everything, in the same room with all that had gone wrong -something like drowsiness pricked at him. He fought it, but the need for air rose up in his throat, pressed at his chest. He opened his own mouth, felt the muscles of his jaw move and his eyes narrow into closed slits as his mouth opened as wide as the creature's.

The urge to laugh passed through him, a sharp sting of hysteria, and he reopened his eyes to see the creature staring at him once more, this time without gesture or sound. Now it merely looked - the eyes flickering curiosity, pupils darting from Victor's eyes to his mouth to the scientist's shivering form, and back again.

Victor waited, but the creature made no motion toward him. Safe for now. Despite the frenzy of Victor's disparate thoughts, the part of him that screamed to run, fool, he had made his own assassin, and the part that fought to stay, to see where his endeavors had taken him, the heaviness of his limbs overcame both, and his eyes closed as his knees found the floor and his head leaned against the wall.

They slept.

A/N -

Yawns are a sign of empathy, right? :) it's a start!

About the Creature's silence at first - I'm not making a James Whale-esque Creature who can only grunt and mutter. (no offense to James Whale, love his portrayal, it's just not Shelley's). But in the novel, sound is a deeply important aspect of the Creature, and I don't want to understate its importance by having him acquire it too fast. While at first in Shelley's classic, his own sounds frighten him, he quickly gains deep eloquence, by which he is able to move the blind DeLacey and the reader. Here, Victor has had a particularly unfortunate reaction to hearing the Creature's infant sounds - so that of course will affect the Creature's attempts at them in the future, and he might be a bit more slow to acquire his characteristic eloquence - but he will definitely get there.


End file.
